To coincide with our coverage of the San Diego Comic Con, this week’s column will be a review of the audiobook of Kevin Anderson’s The Last Days of Krypton. Because it is the audiobook version I’ll be reviewing, not only will I talk about the plot of the story, but also how I felt about the narration by William Dufris. So, if you’re interested at all in exploring the origins of Superman, click after the break to read more.

With a title like The Last Days of Krypton, you just know this isn’t going to be a happily ever after kind of book – and of course almost everyone knows the fact that Superman is the last son of the dying world Krypton. So this book is definitely more about the journey to the endpoint, than in knowing what is to befall this world.

But what is fantastic about this book is it’s ability to mesh so many different aspects of Superman lore that have been introduced over the many decades of the character. Anderson pulls in aspects from the original comic and it’s various revamps, the animated series, and even the movies. There are so many nuggets left for long time fans that to catalog them would be impossible – between references to the Green Lantern Corps, to the arrival of Brainiac, to the use of crystals to grow buildings – there’s something here for everyone.

Let me back up and give the basics. This is the story of the relationship between Jor El and Lara, how they meet and fall in love. Their romance is sweet; with Jor El as a nerdy scientist who’s never had time to notice girls, and Lara as an artist who understands Jor El better than anyone else ever has. Their love for each other is never in question during the story, even as they are drawn into events beyond their control.

It’s also the story of how scientist Jor El and his brother Zor El work to try and convince the Kryptonian Council that their world may be facing a planetary crisis. There is increasing pressure in the core of their world, resulting in frequent earthquakes and destruction. Their sun is growing ever more unstable. The mounting evidence implies that things are approaching a cataclysmic conclusion, one that they fear may destroy the world.

And finally it’s the story of how a commissioner named Zod uses that crisis to gain power and stage a bloody revolution. He cares little about the scientific evidence, only about the inventions Jor El is capable of creating. Zod has spent years suppressing Jor El’s inventions by edict of the Council, but now he senses that by pledging to due what is necessary to turn this crisis around – Jor El will work with him to overthrow the stagnant Council.

This is one of the first audiobooks I’ve listened to, and for the most part I thought William Dufris did an excellent job. He was especially good in his portrayal of Zod, sounding just as I think he would – a noble arrogance. At the same time, I never really liked his voices for any of the women characters, they tended to sound a little too nasal for me to really enjoy. The only other weakness of the book – not the performance – was in some of the leaps of logic that the characters make. It happened a few times, but once in particular when Zor El is confronted with the murder of a friend, he immediately jumps to a conclusion when I easily came up with at least three other possibilities. While I could see why the character would presume his conclusion to be the most likely (and of course, he was right) – I would have appreciated him showing a little more logic about the fact that there might have been other explanations.

But none of those things took away from the final sad passages of the book, as things begin to fall apart and there is no hope left for the survival of this civilization. All the previous plots dovetail together into what is ultimately a last ditch effort by loving parents to save one small baby, the last son of Krypton. It’s a tragic tale; with heroes, villains, lovers, enemies, politics, environmental themes… everything you could want in a good science fiction/superhero story. I definitely recommend it to fans of either type of story.